Men’s rights activism on the rise in India in response to #MeToo movement

An Indian filmmaker has joined calls for the creation of a “#MenToo” movement for men’s rights, saying it should be “as important as #MeToo”, the global uprising of women against sexual harassment.

Deepika Bhardwaj, the director of Martyrs of Marriage, a documentary on the abuse of anti-dowry laws that is currently streaming on Netflix, wrote in an op-ed for the Times of India that men were being treated as “disposable or collateral damage … sacrificed at the altar of the idea of protecting women”.

Since an international outcry at the 2012 gang rape of a woman on a bus in Delhi, India has greatly tightened its laws protecting women from offences including rape and sexual harassment.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.

From15p€0.18$0.18USD 0.27
a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

There has, however, been a corresponding flourishing of men’s rights activism led by conservative activists. As many as 45 individual men’s rights NGOs now operate in India under an umbrella organisation called Save Indian Family.

Bhardwaj’s claim – that men are being “lynched socially” over rape and abuse reports regardless of whether there’s “an iota of truth in the allegations” – follows a backlash from fans and friends of the actor Karan Oberoi, who has been remanded in judicial custody over rape allegations made against him.

According to the Times of India, which promoted Bhardwaj’s op-ed on the front page of many of its city editions across the country on Monday, men’s rights activism in India can trace its routes to the anti-dowry laws that were strengthened in 2005.

The dowry – a payment from a woman’s family to her husband upon marriage – has been outlawed in India since 1961. But it remains commonplace, as does the practice of “dowry harassment” – where a new or prospective wife is subjected to abuse by her husband until her family agrees to pay up.

Bhardwaj’s Netflix film includes as case studies men who have committed suicide after they were accused and charged with dowry harassment, allegations their families denied.

Though the case against Oberoi is ongoing, Bhardwaj uses it as an example of where “the word of a woman is treated as gospel truth by society. No one bats an eyelid when a man is called a ‘rapist, sexual predator, molester’ and much worse without anything proven against him, just because a woman accused him.”

Oberoi is the latest high-profile figure accused as the #MeToo movement has had a major impact across industries in India, from Bollywood to the media and government ministers.

ShapeCreated with Sketch.Metoo movement – in pictures

Show all 24

leftCreated with Sketch.rightCreated with Sketch.

ShapeCreated with Sketch.Metoo movement – in pictures

1/24 2017

A picture shows the messages “#Me too” and #Balancetonporc (“expose your pig”) on the hand of a protester during a gathering against gender-based and sexual violence called by the Effronte-e-s Collective, on the Place de la Republique square in Paris

AFP/Getty

2/24 2018

Italian actress Asia Argento (C) and US singer and actress Rose McGowan, who both accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, take part in a march organised by ‘Non Una Di Meno’ (Me too) movement as part of the International Women’s Day in Rome

AFP/Getty

3/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood, California

AFP/Getty

4/24 2018

South Korean women staging a monthly protest against secretly-filmed spycam pornography in Seoul. Since May 2018, the monthly demonstrations against secretly-filmed spycam pornography in Seoul has shattered records to become the biggest-ever women’s protest in South Korea where the global #MeToo movement has unleashed an unprecedented wave of female-led activism

AFP/Getty

5/24 2017

Swedish MEP Linnéa Engström sits behind a placard placed on her desk that reads “Me too” during a debate about combating sexual harassment and abuse in the EU at the European Parliament in Strasbourg

AFP/Getty

6/24 2018

Activists participate in front of the Brandenburg Gate in a demonstration for women’s rights in Berlin

Getty

7/24 2018

A McDonald’s employee holds a sign during a protest against sexual harassment in the workplace in Chicago

AFP/Getty

8/24 2018

An activist participates in the 2018 #MeToo March in Hollywood

Getty

9/24 2018

Women protest in New York

Getty

10/24 2018

Women hold a banner reading “still feminist” with the Eiffel tower in background

AFP/Getty

11/24 2017

French activist Jean-Baptiste Redde, aka Voltuan, holds a placard as protesters take part in a gathering against gender-based and sexual violence in Paris

AFP/Getty

12/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse, including Democratic candidate for Illinois governor at the time JB Prtizker (left), gather in the Federal Building Plaza to protest the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in Chicago, Illinois after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted out Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and agreed to an additional week of investigation into accusations of sexual assault against him before the full Senate votes on his confirmation. Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teens

Getty

13/24 2018

A group describing themselves as #MeToo/#YoTambien survivors, hold a candlelight vigil outside the Mexico Consulate to support the women taking part in the human caravan heading through Mexico to the US border

AFP/Getty

14/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood

AFP/Getty

15/24 2018

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women’s Day

AFP/Getty

16/24 2018

Dozens of women and men attend a rally and march in Washington Square Park for international Women’s Day in New York

Getty

17/24 2017

People carry signs addressing the issue of sexual harassment at a #MeToo rally outside of Trump International Hotel in New York

Getty

18/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood

AFP/Getty

19/24 2018

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women’s Day

AFP/Getty

20/24 2018

Dozens of protesters against the confirmation of Republican Supreme court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh gather outside of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s office on the afternoon that Professor Christine Blasey Ford testified against Kavanaugh in New York

Getty

21/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse gather in the Federal Building Plaza in Chicago

Getty

22/24 2018

Dozens of women and men attend a rally and march in Washington Square Park

Getty

23/24 2017

People carry signs addressing the issue of sexual harassment at a #MeToo rally outside of Trump International Hotel

Getty

24/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse gather in the Federal Building Plaza to protest the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Getty

1/24 2017

A picture shows the messages “#Me too” and #Balancetonporc (“expose your pig”) on the hand of a protester during a gathering against gender-based and sexual violence called by the Effronte-e-s Collective, on the Place de la Republique square in Paris

AFP/Getty

2/24 2018

Italian actress Asia Argento (C) and US singer and actress Rose McGowan, who both accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, take part in a march organised by ‘Non Una Di Meno’ (Me too) movement as part of the International Women’s Day in Rome

AFP/Getty

3/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood, California

AFP/Getty

4/24 2018

South Korean women staging a monthly protest against secretly-filmed spycam pornography in Seoul. Since May 2018, the monthly demonstrations against secretly-filmed spycam pornography in Seoul has shattered records to become the biggest-ever women’s protest in South Korea where the global #MeToo movement has unleashed an unprecedented wave of female-led activism

AFP/Getty

5/24 2017

Swedish MEP Linnéa Engström sits behind a placard placed on her desk that reads “Me too” during a debate about combating sexual harassment and abuse in the EU at the European Parliament in Strasbourg

AFP/Getty

6/24 2018

Activists participate in front of the Brandenburg Gate in a demonstration for women’s rights in Berlin

Getty

7/24 2018

A McDonald’s employee holds a sign during a protest against sexual harassment in the workplace in Chicago

AFP/Getty

8/24 2018

An activist participates in the 2018 #MeToo March in Hollywood

Getty

9/24 2018

Women protest in New York

Getty

10/24 2018

Women hold a banner reading “still feminist” with the Eiffel tower in background

AFP/Getty

11/24 2017

French activist Jean-Baptiste Redde, aka Voltuan, holds a placard as protesters take part in a gathering against gender-based and sexual violence in Paris

AFP/Getty

12/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse, including Democratic candidate for Illinois governor at the time JB Prtizker (left), gather in the Federal Building Plaza to protest the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in Chicago, Illinois after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted out Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and agreed to an additional week of investigation into accusations of sexual assault against him before the full Senate votes on his confirmation. Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teens

Getty

13/24 2018

A group describing themselves as #MeToo/#YoTambien survivors, hold a candlelight vigil outside the Mexico Consulate to support the women taking part in the human caravan heading through Mexico to the US border

AFP/Getty

14/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood

AFP/Getty

15/24 2018

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women’s Day

AFP/Getty

16/24 2018

Dozens of women and men attend a rally and march in Washington Square Park for international Women’s Day in New York

Getty

17/24 2017

People carry signs addressing the issue of sexual harassment at a #MeToo rally outside of Trump International Hotel in New York

Getty

18/24 2017

Victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and their supporters protest during a #MeToo march in Hollywood

AFP/Getty

19/24 2018

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women’s Day

AFP/Getty

20/24 2018

Dozens of protesters against the confirmation of Republican Supreme court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh gather outside of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s office on the afternoon that Professor Christine Blasey Ford testified against Kavanaugh in New York

Getty

21/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse gather in the Federal Building Plaza in Chicago

Getty

22/24 2018

Dozens of women and men attend a rally and march in Washington Square Park

Getty

23/24 2017

People carry signs addressing the issue of sexual harassment at a #MeToo rally outside of Trump International Hotel

Getty

24/24 2018

Activists and advocates for survivors of sexual abuse gather in the Federal Building Plaza to protest the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Getty

Former junior foreign minister Mobashar Jawed Akbar, the most high-profile figure to quit their job over the claims last October, has denied sexual misconduct allegations from more than 10 women.

But in a country that remains highly socially conservative, #MeToo accusers have themselves been subject to a backlash of intimidation, threats and lawsuits. One of Mr Akbar’s most prominent accusers, journalist Priya Ramani, is currently on trial for a charge of criminal defamation.

Rituparna Chatterjee, an activist who is writing a book on #MeToo in India, told the Guardian: “[After last October] all the men were on the back foot and squirming and really uneasy. And then they laid low. And now they’re coming back, and hitting really hard.”